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Originally Posted by Puritan Sailor  I heard of a PCA church today that instituted term limits basically because the session (which was large) refused to discipline its own deficient elders. So the people took matters into their own hands and instituted a rotation system. Ideally, elders who aren't doing their job should be confronted. But many people won't do that out of fear. The rotation system was used instead to deal with the bad elders.
In the OPC church we went to we had 3 or 4 elders, and had 3 year terms. So every year or two, one would have to be reelected to the session. But they did not have term limits. I'm not sure of the logic behind that structure for them since they are a relatively young church, and have always done it that way. But even inactive elders were not "inactive" since they still helped out.  |
It does seem especially problematic for a small Church. I was blessed to be a part of a small OPC congregation that has had the theological honesty to remain non-particularized for over 8 years because there hasn't been a single man qualified for elder in all that time. It's fallen under another Church and a commission serves as the head of the congregation.
Small Churches with a term limit structure would be forced to compromise on ordination standards and allow any willing male to step into the eldership unless they want to sacrifice their status as a particular congregation.